"Toss-in" buoys?

[Slyster]

I bought a 3 pack of those toss-in colored buoys..

How many of you actually use them?... in these days of electronics...

I think I can see some value using them considering their solid visual/physical reference compared to my GPS... which is sometimes slow to update and a bit hard to see if FULL sun etc..

[Ralph Wiggum]

They can be very useful for visualizing structure. The downside is that as soon as you toss one in, there will be 5 boats on it in no time.

[Dan Brelje]

i would recommend painting the buoys so they are harder to see from a distance. The bright neon colors are nice but not when you are on a busy lake. Dark colors are much harder to see if you are not looking for them.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I use them a ton during the week.. but seldome on weekends... as stated you can draw a crowd if you throw them on weekends...

[jackfish]

Try and old fishing guide trick. Toss the biggest gaudiest bouy in the deadest water you can find. Watch it attract flies. Hee Hee. Seriously, they are a great tool and you'll get lots of use from them.

jackfish

[musky999]

You are right jack fish, I love throwing them out and watch boats motor up and even fish sometimes in 70 feet of water.

[Central Bassman]

I use to uses them alot unil i got a GPS... Know i dont have to worry about all these ppl seeing it and coming over..hahaha

[ikeslayer]

i know a guide on a lake up north and he use to have people go out and follow him around the lake. So he would spend 20 minutes putting out 3-6 of them in what appeared to be a well thought out pattern. Then he would go back to his dock watch everyone flock to the area then get clients in the boat and head the other way. He said it was hilarious but he was so well known for a good fisherman he almost had to.

[RK]

Hiya -

hehe... There's a guy who has a place on the lake my cabin is on. My neighbor and I call him 'bubble boy' because whenever we're on the lake he's following right in the bubbles from our wake. He recognizes our boats (unfortunately mine tends to stick out like a sore thumb...) so when he goes out fishing he drives around the lake looking for us. I've used the marker decoy on him for years and he's never figured it out. Sometimes when it's just a light breeze I'll even tie the marker line off with the weight about 5' down and let it drift. He eventually catches on when he's about 150 yds or so away... When I *do* need an actual marker, I have a stick with mono and a jighead wrapped around it. I call it the 'stealth marker.' To anyone else, it just looks like a floating stick.

To the original question - markers can really be handy for laying out a spot. Especially for deep weedlines, etc, they can really help you get casting angles right for stuff like cranks and carolina rigs.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[DinkADunk]

I like them for marking structure that I want to make a number of passes at. Allows me to manuver the boat without looking at the GPS and concentrate on fishing. Especially useful when the walleye chop is up. As for other fishermen, so what? I'm there first, I'll fish the area for 20-30 minutes and then move on. After I've beaten the fish down then good luck for the other folks catching anything.

[rubber duck]

Use a duck decoy or a seagull decoy at least from a distance

people think you have a pet duck not a hot spot.

[Slyster]

People actually go to YOUR buoys? How rude! I actually avoid them by a few hundred feet... being polite knowing of course no one wants me on their spot. I might check out that same spot another day though!

[Ray Esboldt]

I use buoys when it's windy, or when there's not much boat traffic. They are a must in the wind if you find a certain piece of structure or a school of fish. OK, maybe they are not a must, but they do save on frustration.

A day not to use them, walleye opener.

[Banger]

I use a buoy alot. As mentioned prior, they are great in the wind, I either drop them where I need to position the boat or near a piece of structure to get accurate casts every time. Yes, they do tend to attract other anglers, so beware!

[ocf1]

ive only used them on weekdays, we were literally theonly ones in sight

[buzbunni]

I have one black lindy marker bouy. My fishin' buddy's friend picked it up somewhere "up north". I love this thing, but they are like UFO's man, no one seems to know anything about them. Does anyone carry these?

[Daze Off]

I do - I just painted up two this winter in black. A couple of years ago my partner on the second day of the State TOC was telling me that he had marked a spot with his bouy out on Lake Darling during practice several days earlier but had forgotten to pick-up his marker bouy (black) afterwards. He did not have GPS and was triangulating with shoreline features when low and behold, there his marker was untouched after 4 days with boats zooming all around it. Come to think of it, did not catch any fish there so maybe some joker moved it 100 ft. and was laughing at us as we fished.

Daze Off